By: EFE
By: EFE
The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, urged the United States to reduce the demand for drugs in its territory , after consumption soared last year in this country and the rest of the world.
“In the co-responsibility procedures that we have to adopt , I think we have much more to do in the United States on prevention ”, said Duque in a virtual conference organized by the Atlantic Council laboratory of ideas.
The Colombian president spoke at the beginning of the event, where the report “A plan for the recovery of Covid in Colombia and for What does America care about? ”, prepared by the joint task force led by Senators Ben Cardin (Democrat) and Roy Blunt (Republican).
Duque highlighted in his speech in English that Colombia reached cifr As a record for drug interception, it has destroyed cocaine laboratories in its territory and captured drug traffickers , but considered that “something decisive” must also be done to reduce the demand from the US.
“I think that this is something very important for the construction of long-term peace ”, Stressed the President.
Coca cultivation in Colombia was reduced by 2020 to 100, 00 hectares, 7% less than the area sown in 2019, according to the annual report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC, in English) presented on June 9 in Bogotá.
At the end of last October, the United States announced a new strategy to combat drugs in Colombia, whose pillars are the reduction of production, development of rural areas and environmental protection.
To reduce supply, the United States wants efforts against money laundering and to eradicate drugs, ban them, reduce their demand and destroy processing laboratories are linked to actions to bring drug traffickers to justice .
Regarding the security and development of the rural environment, the initiative advocates promoting them with the implementation of the peace agreement that the Colombian Government reached in 2016 with the defunct FARC guerrilla, in addition to investing in these areas and facilitating access to justice.
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